by Sean Oswald
“Enough. This is the very type of pettiness that my wife and I are not willing to allow to take root here in Eris’ Rise.” Dave then looked at Gunidar and said, “I would expect something from a self-important windbag like you.” Then he turned to look at Steffen and said, “But I would expect more from you. I have come to respect you for your no-nonsense approach over the past few days. Now will someone just tell me why Tode being a Mind Chainer or whatever has everyone on edge?”
Gunidar took it upon himself to answer, “A Mind Chainer is a rare caster class just like your daughter’s. Whereas her class specializes in directly controlling magic, his class is tailored to control the minds of others. The class excels at crowd control and even at specialized buffs and debuffs that are centered in the mind. It even has a class specific skill that allows it to create much longer-term charmed monsters than is normally possible. People are nervous around this class because everyone always wonders if their mind is being tampered with, and superstition leads them to believe that it could be happening, and they don’t even realize it.”
“Thank you for the detailed description. Do you have anything to add, Tode?” Dave asked.
The brash attitude was back as he answered, “No the most esteemed royal mage hit the highlights.” Then he continued with a bit of a darker expression on his face. “What he didn’t mention is the times of getting driven out of a town that you just helped to save just because of rumors and superstitions. If it weren’t for the guild, I would probably still be wandering and homeless. It is that rejection that has led to some of history’s more colorful examples of mind chainers gone bad.”
“Well getting all of that out of you was about as much fun as having a tooth pulled. So if we give you back your weapons and gear, will you behave yourselves? As you can see, our town is not really set up for guests,” Dave said.
“Of course we will be on our best behavior. I mean I didn’t even see a proper tavern in this town yet. Anyway, since you are the ruler here, I guess you are the one that I need to negotiate with,” Tode said with a broad smile.
“My wife and I are co-rulers, so you will need to address her just as much as me.” Dave couldn’t decide whether he was going to like these adventurers or not yet, but he wanted to strike a firm tone with them from the beginning.
“And any negotiating will have to wait till the morning. My husband and I have other matters to attend to this evening.” It was Emily’s turn to be stern, although Dave felt more of it was directed at him than at Tode and company.
“Ah brought me own dram anyway, sae juist be giein' us back oor gear 'n' we wull fin' a farmer tae let us set up tents on his land,” Ro’Billo said.
Dave signaled for the guards to return their gear. “We will see you at breakfast, best that we don’t see you before then.”
With a little more fuss, the three adventurers managed to put all their gear back on and then walked out of the home. The two barons shared a brief conversation, but Steffen was a married man and had seen the look in Emily’s eyes in his own wife’s eyes more than once, so he was quick to get out of the house. Once the others left, Emily asked the guards to wait outside, and they too seemed to sense the situation and went outside to take up posts without protesting.
As the house emptied out, Emily turned a hard look at Dave. “I think maybe your name is Lucy, because like you used to say, ‘You got some splainin to do.’”
All Dave could do was groan.
Chapter Nineteen
“Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice.” — Charles F. Kettering
Eris’ Rise/Flashback to Royal Academy - Jackson and Emily Nelson
While walking to the mess tent, Jackson couldn’t help but notice how different the sights and sounds of Eris’ Rise were. Actually, the smells more than any of it. Adjusting to being on an entirely new world at thirteen was challenging enough, but the thing that kept playing through his mind over and over again was that he had spent more time away from his family in Eloria than he had spent with them. For his first few days in Eris’ Rise, this had been a sleepy little hamlet on the verge of collapse from the failed logging. He was kept from knowing all the ins and outs of it, but he figured out enough. Now that it was ten times larger with more than twenty times the population, he got stared at by more than just the humans. The elves had their own way of looking at him sideways.
Prior to going to the Royal Academy, he likely would not have dealt very well with the way he was stared at here. This was supposed to be his home, but he felt like an outsider. Back on earth, he wasn’t exactly what he would call one of the popular kids, but he felt at home in enough social groups and was successful enough in ways that mattered that he didn’t have much to worry about. He had been good at sports as well as school, good looking enough to not get teased for that, and big enough to not get picked on.
Then he went to the academy, and his entire world had been turned upside down. He went from being everyone’s friend at school, to the despised outcast who barely managed to make one friend. Besides Tabor, only a couple kids were neutral towards him. That first night in the lounge, when Malten had taken him to meet the other kids, should have cued him in to what to expect, but he had managed to brush it off overnight and thought to make a fresh start the next morning. Even now, he remembered it all too well.
Jackson woke up in a strange bed in a strange room in a strange city on a strange world. Still he was optimistic. His mom always said that ‘hope springs eternal.’
The other students might have given him a hard time the night before, but that was just likely part of the hazing of a new student. They would get past his slightly different ears and his dusky skin as soon as they saw what a good guy he was. Maybe he didn’t put it into words quite that way inside his head, but that was what he hoped for.
Strangely, Malten was already gone from the room. Yesterday, before the uproar at the lounge, the two boys had discussed going to breakfast together. Choosing to think that Malten had simply forgotten about it, Jackson got dressed in one of his spare sets of clothing, washed his face, and headed down to breakfast. Man did he miss quality toothpaste. The stuff they had tasted like old socks to him, but at least it cleaned his teeth as well as could be accomplished without a real toothbrush. Whoever thought of putting a rough linen on a stick as a way of cleaning teeth needed to be dunked in very cold water.
As he walked down the hall, he dodged the servants who seemed to be particularly busy this morning, yet not so busy as to give him an awkward second glance. He dreamed of how much money he could make if he invented a proper toothbrush. The smile on his face held as he walked into the dining hall. There were four long tables all set perpendicular to a smaller table at the head of the massive room. Malten had told him last night that the small table was where the professors and any visitors they might get would eat, on the rare occasion that they chose to eat in the hall.
The arrangements for the rest of the tables seemed strange to Jackson. Malten had tried to explain it, but all Jackson knew was that it was based upon some combination of what year you were in at the academy as well as your social rank outside of the academy. That of course left him not knowing at all where he was supposed to sit.
Each table was four feet across with benches on either side and room for thirty to a side. The wood of the tabletop was thick and dark in color as if stained with a rich varnish. All around the room there were clusters of students in groups of three or four as well as a couple larger groups. He saw a pair of girls, so he assumed that they were the Miromarian princess and her companion. Jackson was half tempted to walk over and try to sit down next to the girls, but his nerves got the better of him.
Each group had platters of food in the middle of the table. It didn’t look like he would be going hungry here. He saw what he took to be pancakes, slabs of bacon, and bowls full of eggs. Scanning the room, he found Malten sitting in one of the two larger groups at the far right
table. Jackson tried waving to get the younger boy’s attention, but despite seeing him look up, Malten never responded.
Rather than cry out across the room, he started walking over to that group. As he got closer, he saw that Michael, one of the boys who had been rough on him last night, was sitting there as the center of attention, everyone hanging on his every word. This time, Jackson took a bit more time to size up the boy. He had to be a bit older than Jackson, maybe as much as sixteen even and all of six feet in height. His arms were thick and muscled but still showed the potential for future growth. Even his chin screamed that he was older than the rest as he had a scraggly blond beard trying to poke its way out.
Before he could even reach the table, Michael called out, “What do you think you are doing, half-elf?”
Jackson was taken back by the sheer vitriol in Michael’s voice. “Just getting some breakfast,” he stuttered out.
“Not here you aren’t. This is a no elves table,” the bully said.
Jackson had seen this happen to new kids before at his school on earth. Once he had even gone so far as to intervene and stick up for the new guy. A part of him wanted to just go to another table and find a place to sit by himself, or maybe join one of the smaller groups, but he remembered his dad’s advice. He had always said that a bully was a coward at heart.
“I don’t see any signs.” With that, Jackson sat down at the table. Unfortunately, Dave’s advice might have been sound on Earth where there was only reasonable level of variance between boys, but Eloria had no such reasonableness to it.
Michael moved astoundingly fast, so much so that Jackson was only barely able to stand up from the table before the ten feet separating them had been crossed. The older boy grabbed, and Jackson had never felt so helpless in his life. It was like when he had been four or five and wrestling with his father. He was that utterly outclassed. Except unlike his father, Michael showed no mercy.
Jackson felt one hand clamp onto his arm, and the pressure made him sure the bone was going to break. Michael’s other hand first balled up into a fist and struck him in the ribs. He felt them give way. That fist quickly became a vise around the back of his neck, and Jackson felt shocks running down both his arms from the pressure before his face was shoved into the bowl of eggs.
In nothing flat, Jackson couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t squirm free. Every attempted breath sent bursts of pain along his side, and every attempt to pull free sent jolts of pain down his arm. With his face shoved into the eggs, Jackson couldn’t even cry out as tears of fear and shame welled up in his eyes. Even with the boar he had had a fighting chance.
Then he heard a voice cry out, “That is quite enough Michael. Release him at once.”
Jackson felt one more shove and a twisting of his arm that almost caused him to retch into his mouth from pain before all the pressure was removed and he was able to lift his head. He reflexively jerked back and immediately regretted it as points of stabbing pain hit his chest wall making it difficult to breath. He could barely make out the conversation between Michael and Master Weber.
“What do you think you are doing? You know there is no fighting in the mess hall.”
“It wasn’t anything. I was just wrestling with him. I had no idea he would be so weak.”
Then Jackson heard someone calling his name. Finally, the words registered, “Are you okay? Can you breathe?”
He tried to answer, but the words only came out as a groan. Then Jackson heard students being dispatched to get Priestess Fischer. The rest became a blur until he woke up in the infirmary on a bed. Standing over him were Headmaster Talcum and the priestess. He felt much better. His side was stiff and his arm sore, but he could breathe without pain.
“Ah, there you are. I was worried that you might be out for a while.” He was dazed enough still that it took him a second to realize that the priestess was the one speaking.
“On behalf of the academy, let me apologize for the behavior of Michael Tornstadt. He was completely out of line. You have my assurance that he will be most harshly reprimanded. I am, however, a little confused. I was told that your mother was a Chosen and your father was quite strong. I would have expected you to be better able to defend yourself,” Headmaster Talcum said.
From there, Jackson launched into his prepared story about having come from a peaceful land and being shipwrecked along the shore near the north of Albia. He explained how his parents, while strong, had protected him because that was the custom in his homeland. After the entire fabricated story unfolded, the two adults looked at each other and some silent communication passed between them before Talcum nodded and simply said, “That is most unfortunate.”
“Why don’t you leave him with me, and I will have a little talk with him,” Fischer said to the Headmaster.
“Very well. At your discretion, he can be excused from classes today.” Then looking down at Jackson, he said, “I’m glad you are feeling better. I will leave you in Priestess Fischer’s capable hands now.”
The next hour of his life was filled up by a lecture about suffering and how it builds character as well as cautions about not provoking those stronger than yourself. He felt a little bit like he was being blamed for not being able to protect himself. It was so contrary to everything he had learned on earth as well as his values. Yet, through it all, he sat there respectfully and listened.
Jackson was brought back to the present when his leg bumped into the table they were walking towards. He had been moving forward on autopilot while lost in thought. Thinking back about what he had learned at the royal academy, it wasn’t combat lessons or field survival classes–and it definitely wasn’t the political lessons–that stood out in his mind. Rather, it was the fundamental reality of the difference between earth and Eloria that stood out. It made sense though.
It was his desire to level up. This was a game-like world after all, which had made it seem okay to go to the royal academy. When his dad told him that the king wanted him to attend there, Jackson had leapt at the opportunity. He felt distinctly left behind when he was still at home.
His parents and Mira were gaining levels, and in his mind, it was just because they had been lucky enough to start at level one rather than level zero. He hated being lumped in with Sara as little kids, the ones that needed protecting. Even with that, his baby sister had managed to get some kind of really cool class, though she did a poor job of explaining it to him. His only solace upon learning that was that she still wasn’t able to apply her stat points or really gain the benefits of having a level until she turned ten.
The reality of the academy had been so different. Social isolation with only one real friend and another sorta friend, words of hate, fear of being in a new place … and that wasn’t even factoring in the beatings. He hated that he had gone there to try to gain power but had never felt more helpless in his entire life than in those few weeks. If there is anything that a teenager hates, it is feeling helpless when all they really want is to start deciding their own future.
Enough moping though. Everything was going to be different now. He had been so lost in thought again that he almost didn’t hear his sister speaking to him.
“So you leveled up … pretty cool. Aren’t the stat increases crazy cool?” Mira asked. Jackson could feel her trying to bridge the gap between them. The two of them had never gotten along very well. They just didn’t like the same things. If anyone from the outside came against her, Jackson would be the first to jump in and defend her, but that didn’t make it easy between the two of them.
“Yeah, level nine, but dad told me to wait to pick the stats to increase until we had a chance to talk about it more tonight,” Jackson replied.
“That sounds like dad. He has some good ideas, but both he and mom will try to control how you spend your points, Felix.” Mira seemed strangely worked up about it.
“Can we drop that name now? We aren’t even on earth anymore.”
“I’m not the one who used to eat cat food.” Mir
a grinned and Sara laughed at the reminder of a story that happened before she was even born.
“And who gave me the cat food?”
“I can’t help it if you were stupid enough to eat it. On second thought, maybe you better put those points into Intelligence, Felix.”
Jackson crossed his arms and started to walk faster to put some space between him and his sister. Only a moment later, he was tugged back when he heard Sara say, “Don’t go. Walk with us please, Jack.”
He slowed his pace to allow them to catch up with him again, and when they did, he muttered, “Just don’t call me Felix … Miranda.”
“Fine, fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you would still be so sensitive about it. What I want to know anyway is what you want to do with your points,” Mira said.
“You mean my build?” Jackson asked.
“Yeah that’s what dad calls it, too. Do you have any idea what you want to be, a fighter or a healer or maybe a cool caster like me?” Mira queried.
“Oh oh, Jackson could be a Monster Friend like me. Then our friends could play together,” Sara chimed in.
“Sara is bestus friend,” Krinnk said echoing Sara’s enthusiasm.
“I don’t think it works like that. Your class is an epic class. Most people I have talked to couldn’t even name another epic class, and no one had ever heard of your class. I think you are gonna be the only special one with that class.” Sara beamed as Mira spoke even though Jackson heard the inflection on special and knew Mira was talking more short bus kinda special.
“Shows what you know. I already got a quest for a class,” Jackson said indignantly.
Suddenly Mira stopped in the middle of the dirt street, her attention fully focused upon Jackson. “What? Really? What class did you get offered?”
Jackson went on to explain about the Ironwood Monk and even read the notification to his sister as they slowly resumed their pace.
